Core Memory Unwound
by cheesecakeplz
Summary: Work had become both immeasurably easier and significantly more difficult with Lovino joining him as a constant, unfailing hit-man and a source of imbalance. Spain/Romano. Oneshot. Inception-based AU.


**Core Memory Unwound**

_Those who have compared our life to a dream were right..._

_we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep._

**DISLCIAMER**: Inception and Hetalia belong to their respective owners.

* * *

"Antonio!"

Antonio blinked himself slowly out of his boredom-induced stupor and stretched his legs to restart some sort of feeling in them; after all, he had been cramped in the car for a couple hours. Yawning, the Spaniard manually rolled down the window and glanced outside just in time to see a certain pinstripe-clad brunet round the corner, cheeks flushed red with fatigue. Antonio grinned amiably in the man's direction and waved, entirely ignoring the blood splatters that were caked onto one of those precious tomato-cheeks.

"Antonio, what the hell is wrong with you? Drive! _Drive_!" Lovino shrieked as he raced towards the car, barely catching himself on the side and frantically jiggling the door's handle. Antonio leaned over and pushed it open, saving Lovino the trouble of unlocking it himself. "I said _drive_!" The Italian's voice reached an octave higher than Antonio thought possible.

"We say 'please', Lovi."

Lovino made a strangled noise of half indignation, half murderous intent. Antonio just grinned in response, glancing out the window in interest of the commotion consisting of five men screaming into the night and barking orders at one-another. Lovino's glare turned into a look of horrified desperation; his tremors could be felt through Antonio's shirt, and he responded in what was meant to be intimidating, but came out as more of a petrified whimper, "_Per favore_, for god's sake!"

"Glad to hear you still have _some_ manners." Antonio laughed easily, pressing his foot suddenly down onto the gas pedal. The old car rumbled into life, a growl that evened into a steady hum as it gave a sudden burst of speed, rocketing down the alleyway; Antonio vaguely heard several yells of surprise in their trail, but the voices were soon lost due to distance. Nearly half of Lovino's upper body was out the car window, his shoulders shaking and chest struggling for breath as he stared in an adrenaline-induced haze at the direction of his most recent crime scene. As soon as the Italian was satisfied with the amount of space between he and the area, he sunk into his seat, crossing himself with eyes closed. Antonio smiled once before reaching over to wipe Lovino's cheek clean of blood. The reward for his work was a harsh glare and eleven words that forced his smile to turn upside down; "You are, without a doubt, the worst partner in crime ever." He smoothed out his pinstripe jacket and snorted, the wayward curl poking through his bangs bouncing with the movement.

"Lovi, I'm just trying to make sure you still have manners, that's all." The Spaniard quieted with another furious scowl from the man to his left. He bowed his head. "_Lo siento_." Antonio paused as he dragged the car around a sharp turn, "It won't happen again."

"I should say it won't. _Merda, _the whole plan could've gone to crap if we had waited and you had been shot! Did you ever think about that, Antonio? _The whole plan_!" His voice had risen again, this time punctuated with his fist meeting the dashboard. Antonio didn't flinch. He was the object of Lovino's temper tantrums too often for that. Instead he ducked his head twice, muttering "_si, si_," under his breath until Lovino looked away.

Lovino was so human in his fear, so believable in his reactions that Antonio nearly forgot he didn't exist in reality. His subconscious pitched the Italian back at him with amazing accuracy.

They drove in silence for a long while.

After the third minute of dead communication, Lovino proceeded to pluck a black book from his jacket pocket, flicking through the pages before coming to a small sliver of metal laid delicately between page 59 and 60; a thin copper cross with _Sicily, 1999 _scrawled onto its surface. The shred of red fabric weaved into the hole at its top was worn with use, matted down with thumbpad strokes. Antonio watched the man at his side rub the fabric between two fingers, muttering something under his breath, until suddenly it felt as though he was intruding on something immensely private. He hated it when Lovino repeated things, little ticks and situations that Antonio knew had stuck in his memory. He turned away and focused on the road.

Antonio never remembered the skies being so dark before.

"Hey, _bastardo._ Pull over by this train stop, alright?" Lovino's quavering voice cut through the quiet like a knife, and his fingernails digging into Antonio's arm had the same effect. The Spaniard did as he was told, easing the car to a halt by the side; Lovino immediately shot out of the vehicle, throwing his jacket behind him into the car as he bolted for the train tracks, seizing the train schedule as soon as he reached it. Hands visibly shaking, the man ripped it from its place, eyes roving madly over its contents as if it were a lifeline. Antonio, curious as to what had the man's paranoia kicking in this time, stepped out from the driver's seat and called Lovino's name once, faintly. The Italian jumped. The copper cross fell from between his fingers onto the ground. Antonio automatically bent to retrieve it, but before he could even brush the surface, Lovino snatched it away and cradled it frantically against his chest.

Nothing was ever easy with Lovino.

"R-read this, Antonio. I can't see the damn words." The man strangled out, shoving the paper to the brunette at his side with his face averted and eyes shut tight. Antonio began to question him, but Lovino threw the schedule at his chest and stomped away, face flushed. "Goddamn it, Antonio, just read it out loud!" Antonio bit back a laugh. "I'm an old man, Lovi; I can't read without my glasses." He said with a poorly concealed chuckle. Lovino practically choked with anger. Antonio smiled fondly at the colour—tomato red—that the Italian's cheeks were turning and continued, his smile splitting into a grin; "Besides, why can't you read it?"

Lovino's face was quickly growing into a more deep fuchsia colour; he was utterly oblivious to the teasing. "Because—because I can't, that's why! I just _can't_! Goddamn!" The Italian shrieked, pacing onto the railroad tracks, one hand seizing patches of his own hair while the other waved frantically at the air. Antonio blinked. He looked down.

The paper read, as follows:  
Train leaves at 12  
at 12  
12  
DESTINATION  
DESTINATION  
(there was a long black line here, something of a censor bar)  
DESTINATION:  
THE TRAIN STATION SOMEWHERE ELSE

Antonio wondered if there had been a typo. Either way, the final sentence made him laugh. Lovino asked why and Antonio read the schedule aloud, grinning all the while. The paper was promptly ripped from his hands.

"_Merda_!"

Antonio looked up, eyebrows raised. Lovino turned on him, hands shaking worse than in the car and eyes wide as saucers. "They changed the information!"

"_Como_?"

A shiver went through the man's form and he shouted; "Do I have to repeat everything I say? Jesus Christ! I said, they changed the information, Antonio! They _know_!" Antonio blinked, his hands slowly retreating to his pockets. "Oh." How Lovino, a mere personified (though eerily consistent) memory in his cluttered subconscious, could figure these things out before he did was always a mystery. Maybe Lovino had become Antonio's common sense somehow...?

"They think they're so smart, those bastards, censoring out the important parts and changing everything like this—"

"If this is the case, I should probably wake myself up then, shouldn't I, Lovi? Arthur won't be happy, that's for sure, but maybe he'll be in a good mood and he won't beat me up again." Antonio interrupted suddenly before Lovino could throw another fit. The Italian's anger seemed to go out of him in those few words, and his hands dropped to his sides. "You're leaving? But I didn't...I didn't tell you! I didn't tell you about how the first part of the plan went!" Antonio forced a lopsided smile, rocking back onto his heels. "Yeah, but if you know what happened, then I know, right, Lovi?"

Lovino scowled. Antonio drew the gun from its holster.

"You better come back soon."

Lovino's cheeks were furiously red as he stole the occasional panicked glance at the weapon. Antonio laughed and took off the safety. Lovino's eyes squeezed shut, hands clenched at his sides.

"You didn't even thank me, asshole."

Antonio felt the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile. Work had become both immeasurably easier and significantly more difficult with Lovino joining him as a constant, unfailing hit-man and a source of imbalance. Tipping Antonio's scales into insanity while getting the job done. Seeing the Italian's face pale with panic when a plan failed; Antonio awoke with a headache and a slap to the face every time, as though seeing Lovino in distress wasn't pain enough.

"Well, _gracias_, Lovi. I'll be back."

The expected, explosive snap of gunfire directly below his jaw. A dull ringing in the ears. And then, mercifully, jolting into reality with cold sweat coating his palms and neck. Antonio's eyes roved around the room, his jaw grinding, searching for the bullet that had been lodged there in an all-too-vivid dream. No train station. No paper. No Lovino Vargas.

"You failed, didn't you?"

"Well, technically Lovino succeeded, but I—" Slap. The wire slipped from Antonio's wrist to the floor. His neck popped at the sudden violence, but he did not complain aloud, merely sending a spite-tinged glare to the man crouched beside him.

"Don't give me that bullshit, Antonio. Either you failed or you didn't, and judging by your expression I've got a good guess that you did. Lovino or not." The bushy-browed Brit paused momentarily, narrowing his eyes, "He's still hanging around with you? That isn't healthy, Antonio, and you know it. To keep someone locked in your head like that, I mean."

Antonio rubbed at the pinpoint of an IV's remains on his arm, avoiding Arthur's scrutinizing stare. "_Si, si_. I know." His head bobbed twice in understanding, and the action rattles his headache into a migraine—a pinching, angry pain at his temples and behind his eyes. He attempts massaging it away, but Arthur seems determined to make his life substantially worse and speaks again; "Not like I care about you personally or anything, I'm just concerned about your job performance. The last time I worked with you, you let Lovino do all the work. Not like that's much different than what it was like when Lovino was alive—"

Antonio rose from the reclined armchair, threw his jacket over his shoulder, and began to leave the building. Arthur squawked after him in rage, Ivan brushed past him on his way inside and asked what was the matter, Tino glanced up from his work with a somewhat sympathetic look in his eyes, but the Spaniard kept on walking.

And walking.

His head still hurt.

* * *

a/n: This fic probably won't make any sense unless you've seen Inception, but I'm not going to say I consider it a crossover. It's just a oneshot but even so I hope it doesn't raise too many issues. Oh, and please don't put it on Story Alert because there's definitely not going to be a sequel. Sorry. ;u;;

Just to clarify, this was written to be confusing because it was based on a dream of mine (oh, the irony!) so don't worry if it doesn't make any sense. I kind of just wanted an excuse to write Spain as a bit of a psycho, which, in my personal headcanon, is the personality type he fits into along with Russia. Like a Yandere, I guess...?

Anyhoo, I'm rambling. Please review if you favourite! Thanks for reading!


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